It is the sight of human teeth
in the skull of an ungulate
that brings halt to his humiliation.

For weeks he taunts and indulges,
bringing the child shoulder steaks and foreshanks,
watching drool slip over the hairless bull’s jaw.

After a while this diversion loses all appeal,
and so he shows the child how the meat is harvested.
Hooks in exposed flesh, pulled apart into brisket — spannrippe, testina.

The child retches, sputters out its own resemblance.
He tells it that all meals shall henceforth
be served raw.

This too dulls, as the child adapts —
he feels the old humiliation surface and he commissions
the artist to build a sealed paddock for this brutish creature.

It is one day, on their way to view the labyrinth’s progress, that man and creature discover
the carcass of the Athenian stable boy, head crushed by an errant stallion,
that Minos has another moment of inspiration:
scooping up the boy’s robes to expose the pale underbelly,
he encourages the minotaur forward with the word brizόla.